Crisis (Kris, Sweden 1946)

Jack (Stig Olin) and Nelly (Inga Landgré) after the local dance. This feels like a Jean Renoir composition.

Crisis was the first feature by Ingmar Bergman as director after he worked as a scriptwriter and assistant director to Alf Sjöberg on Torment in 1944. It has just left MUBI’s streaming offer in the UK and is otherwise available from Criterion. Adapted by Bergman himself from a play by the Danish writer Leck Fischer this is a first film with several clear influences and as one critic noted, Bergman was still very much a ‘theatre director’ at this stage. I’m not a fan of Bergman’s later films in the 1960s and beyond, the ones that are usually most acclaimed, but I have enjoyed the handful of his earlier films that I’ve seen and in particular Summer Interlude (1951) and Summer With Monika (1953). I tried to approach Crisis with an open mind.

Nelly with Ulf (Allan Bohlin)

The plot outline of the film is very familiar and a staple of popular entertainment. The setting is a remote small country town by a lake in which Nelly (Inga Landgré), a beautiful young girl of 18, lives with her foster-mother Ingeborg (Dagny Lind) and a lodger, Ulf or ‘Uffe’ (Allan Bohlin), a dull veterinarian in his 30s. No sooner has the town been introduced via a voiceover narration than the ‘inciting incident’ occurs. Nelly’s mother, Jenny (Marianne Löfgren), returns from Stockholm to entice her daughter to join her in the city. That night at a local dance, Jenny will meet Jack (Stig Olin), a smooth-talking, street-smart young man who has followed Jenny from Stockholm. Is he Jenny’s ‘toy-boy’? Unaware, Nelly agrees to go to Stockholm. The country mouse goes to town and Ingeborg and Uffe are bereft.

Ingeborg (Dagny Lind)(left) with Jenny (Marianne Löfgren)

If there is a ‘crisis’ in the narrative, it is most likely a ‘crisis of conscience’ as this is essentially a moral tale. Having said that, there is a dramatic climax in Stockholm which eventually leads to a conventional resolution back in the country town. I take the film to be a melodrama and apart from admiring the beauty and vitality of Nelly, I felt most strongly for Ingeborg. The interest in the film is for me in the mixture of stylistic devices. I’ve already mentioned the narration which begins and ends the film. There is also the use of some very loud and dramatic music at moments of drama and music is also a crucial factor in the crude distinction between generations at the dance when a recital in one part of the building is interrupted by the dance band next door – this is the moment when Nelly and Jack first get together. There are similar symbolic moments elsewhere using expressionist lighting and simple effects such as the criss-crossing of railway tracks in a dream. Trains feature heavily in the narrative and at first I thought it was an almost Ozu-like obsession. But the trains are used functionally as night trains transporting the characters between the city and the country town and also simply as dramatic mise en scène with clouds of steam, whistles and other sound effects.

This publicity shot might not appear in the film like this but it does indicate some of the ‘in depth’ compositions

The cinematography is by Gösta Roosling who had experience of four or five features. How much of what we see might be down to Bergman’s ideas? The overall visual style appears to be an amalgam of German Expressionist ideas and French poetic realism alongside some deep-focus outdoor material with long shots that is more reminiscent of neo-realism (which at this time had barely been exported from Italy). Some scenes are nicely composed in depth and the melodrama use of mirrors and windows is noticeable, especially in Stockholm where Jenny runs a beauty parlour. The dramatic climax takes place on what I assume is a studio set with lighting that cries out film noir. Perhaps there is no clear defining style, but the film is always interesting to look at. One long shot shows Nelly in bed suddenly forced to rise when the door is opened (see above). We see her naked from the rear clutching the sheet to her chest. The inference is clear but I do wonder how such a shot would have been received by censors in the UK or US in 1946. I don’t think Bergman’s films came to the UK before the 1950s when they were sometimes cut for dialogue.

One of the more expressionist shots in Jenny’s beauty parlour at night

Given that this was a first feature, Bergman must already have built a reputation since there seem to be several official press pack photos from Svensk Filmindustri (SF) in circulation suggesting that there was expected to be considerable interest in the film. This joins the other early works by Bergman that I have enjoyed.

In the YouTube clip below you can see the scene including the image at the head of this post.It begins with the local dance before Jack and Nelly sneak off. I think it is supposed to be a ‘day for night’ sequence. The music at this point is more for the possible romance than the impending melodrama (indicated by the dialogue?). Nelly is wearing the dress Jenny brought her from Stockholm. (It’s worth watching the extract to the end.)

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